Legal Commentary

Saving the Everglades, or Saving US Sugar?

By Jonathan H. Adler

The NYT reports that Florida?s ambitious Everglades restoration plan, as actually implemented, may do more to help ag-giant US Sugar than to restore and protect the Everglades.  Although heralded when first announced, Florida has had a hard time following through on the plan.

the governor?s ambitious plan to reclaim the river of grass, as the famed wetlands are known, is instead on track to rescue the fortunes of United States Sugar.The proposal was downsized only five months after it was announced. By April 2009, amid the deepening recession, the state said it could afford to purchase only 72,800 acres of United States Sugar?s land, for $536 million. The company would stay in business and the state would retain the option of buying the remaining 107,000 acres at a future date.

United States Sugar dictated many of the terms of the deal as state officials repeatedly made decisions against the immediate needs of the Everglades and the interests of taxpayers, an examination of thousands of state e-mail messages and records and more than 60 interviews showed.

Efforts to restore the Everglades have picked up urgency in the last decade: the sprawling subtropical wetland, the only ecosystem of its kind, is dying for lack of clean water. Many environmentalists remain convinced that Mr. Crist?s deal with United States Sugar, even in its downsized form, offers the Everglades its best hope.

But documents and interviews suggest that the price tag and terms of the deal could set back Everglades restoration for years, or even decades.

The article is particularly unflattering to Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, noting his close political ties to US Sugar?s attorneys and quoting former Gov. Jeb Bush?s criticism of his successor, and highlights the sugar giant?s political influence.  It seems it was rather easy for the government to subsidize Everglades destruction.  Successful Everglades restoration will be a much more difficult task.

UPDATE: More from Holly Doremus at Legal Planet.

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on March 08, 2010 (boomark / email).